/wbg/ Worldbuilding General

Sleep deprivation
Look up some "crazy" mythologies and believe systems, like hinduism.

I've been looking at Stoic Physics, especially the concept of Pneuma recently for inspiration. Pneuma is basically Chakra or Mana or whatever the fuck your particular culture calls "life energy". It comes in 3 forms, one that holds matter together, one that makes organic life work, and one that makes sapient life work.

While I'm incorporating this into my setting (along with some Eastern philosophy) I can't help but fucking hate all the different names for this energy. Pneuma is fucked, and Chakra/Mana/Ki is either also fucked, overused, or a mechanic in the system I'm using for this setting, so they're all out.

tl;dr What are some good names for a vital energy in place of Chakra/Mana/Ki and shit like that? Preferably something short and catchy.

Sorry, didn't mean to quote this, though it kinda fits?

Nice Wacky shrimp

"Prana" is the a similar concept from ancient india, it's basic meaning being "breath". Ancient egypt has the kinda hard to define concept of "ka", which is also a lifeforce. Though while writing this out I realize that the name doesn't really sound exciting.

>How do you come up with new creatures? Not just monsters, but fauna in general.

I have a tendency to not over think it and basically go through 2 sources when looking for fauna/monsters, etc.

>1. Steal animals from the past.
All Ice Age animals are fair game, but in terms of dinosaurs I try to keep them within the cretaceous period (since they had grass, flowers, fruit) unless something REALLY fucking cool was in the further past like stegosauruses.

>2. Steal monsters, but always try to naturalize them.
Whenever I take a monster be it from video games or folklore/mythology, I try to "naturalize" them as thoroughly as possible. What I mean by that is I give them the "in a vacuum" treatment: no intelligent races to interfere with them. If it can't live in a vacuum: I either change it or remove it if there's nothing left, sort to speak.
I usually end up with "demilitarized" monsters that are still pretty dangerous, but don't feel "unnecessarily EEEEEEVIL" .

Example:
-The Stirge is a type of very specialized bat that adapted to suck blood from the incredibly thick-skinned giant animals that mosquitoes couldn't get large enough to ever hope to drink from.... Obviously though since HUUUGE animals aren't as common as they used to be- Stirges can be quite troublesome for smaller creatures.

I was aware of Prana (I thought the Greeks got Pneuma from India in the first place), but I thought Ka was a much more static concept? Like, it represents your spiritual identity or soul?

It was a mix, it was part of the soul, but it was also the spark that distinguished the living from the dead.

What would cause a minority group to become associated with crime besides "lol they're all evil jerks".

poverty

There's lots of poor minorities

In my setting there's one group who are mostly law abiding citizens but with a minority of crooks. I need a reason for them to get singled out by society compared to the other poorfags.

Cultural focus on the community over private possessions, or a strong distrust of outsiders to the community.

Basically every minority takes a turn being "the crime minority". So an easy one to use is that they're the most recent minority. Another one you can use is "a single famous criminal came from that community, and now that's the stereotype."

The Elder Scrolls Isn't really weird outside of a couple of concepts and character, Its just well-flushed out without going into too much detail a la forgotten realms.

It also helps that almost all the lore is exfoliated by obsessive fans who scour millions of lines of dialogue and reframe it to fit their established narrative.

In that case, Ka is on my short list, right alongside Vitae and Mana.

So here's my map. I like it how it is but I've got a question

To make things easier to track, should I limit every quadrant to one major point of interest or bite the bullet and make a big list of shit and their assigned quadrant(s), allowing multiple things in a single quadrant?

Minority are refugees in the majority's land, or the remains of a native force after invasion/take over by majority. For whatever reason (money, emotional appeal, labor, etc.) the minority make a case and are let in/let live - and this goes well for a generation or two.

Fast forward to current time. The original reasons for the mixed communities is glossed over by history, but the fuss is remembered. Now every crime committed by the minority's descendants (whether they be direct descendants, mixed, or heck, even families who came after the events but share a common history) is blown out of proportion.
"This is why we should've never let them/let them stay/didn't kill them all/etc."

You know the phrase "Correlation does not imply causation"? Take that and flip it.
All it takes is a few major events with a common thread (e.g. the minority group as perps) and a little time to blur out the lesser details for a fact to become almost self-fulfilling.
"You remember all those [events] a few years back? Caused by people belonging to this minority? We can't trust 'em."

Never mind how the statistics might add up compared to the majority group. Most of the majority will, by nature of outnumbering the minority, have less exposure and experience to any representatives of the minority group. Most of their information about the minority group will be those overblown, exaggerated tales. They come to expect that from the minority group. When a member of the ill-informed majority is forced to come to a determination about a person (who happens to belong to that minority group), they will err on the stereotype, because it is what they expect.

"Of course the minority is tied to crime, it's just common sense! I can give you events X, Y, and Z from history to reinforce that, and I've never heard or seen anything contrary to that. Sure, I'll give this guy a chance, but I'm not going to trust him."

Oh hey! Someone else is using my map pieces! How's yours coming along?

Not him, but I like this. What process do you use?

I'm fairly certain I'm the user that you last said this to

I like this map. Thank you

Just trying to decide how I want to structure the process for fleshing out the world now

I need some kind of power to pit my not!Egyptian crocodilemen against in the south. I was thinking of making the region jungle and putting in a rival crocodilemen kingdom, flavored around Mesoamerica. Too corny?

Possibly. RL Egypt was bordered on the South by various African kingdoms, including Kush and Ethiopia/Aksum.

Does the power have to be crocodile-folk? What role in the setting do they serve?

Not really, I just need something to act as a rival power as to help explain why a kingdom of large aggressive reptilemen didn't move through and conquer their weakened northern neighbors during the last empire falling, or in general in the timeline. Well, other than the desert crossing and a dragon waking and flying through the pass between the 2 regions, royally fucking things up there for a while.

Ey, first time DM here and I wanted to build something vaguely off of 19th century Russia because I really like the setting / aesthetic of it, but I'm not really sure how to apply it. I was thinking of using GURPS for it, but I'm not sure on the Hook or who the players would be or what the narrative lens would be. I was thinking of them being mercenaries heading through the landscape, but I have no real experience to draw on.

Thanks in advance

...

Got it, the world sucks and the PCs are stuck in it. Now to make this fun, would I best have them be in revolutionary groups, wageslave """free workers""", mercenaries, or what? I'm not sure if it would be fun for the players to get utterly fucked by their society as they're pretty new and it'd be pretty open, so I'm not sure how to narrow it.

Russian Mythology has the concept of wandering heroes built in it, called Bogatyr. You could have the PCs play their role.

And to be fair, when I run my Not!Russia setting, I make sure that no matter how crushing the loss or black the night the PCs find themselves in, there is always a silver lining. 19th century Russian stories are depressing, but Russian folklore itself is a very hopeful, Noblebright setting. Keep an element of that so your players keep coming back and not slitting their wrists during a bathroom break.

Do you mind really vaguely greentexting what you did for your campaign? Again, utterly new and not all that creative so I'd like to see what you did, if you don't mind.

Any recommended readings for Russian mythology?

I don't. That's my weak spot. I can never come up with anything original, so I just tend to use real life fauna.

Hmmm. This may take a while, and a bit of rambling. But in a nutshell, you have to go Old School Bastard GM. Embrace, just a little, the That GM petty little shit part of yourself, and sprinkle a little bit of it into everything you do.

Examples!
>PCs are constantly coming across piles of dead peasants due to the Monster of the Week or whatever threat is about
>No one ever seems to give a shit about all the dead serfs, from the Boyars all the way down to other serfs
>It's just how things are, is the only response they get

>There is literally no 100% Good side, except the Church
>The Church will heal you for base spell costs or less, and really just wants to keep the world chugging along for one more day
>The "Good"-Kingdom is a corrupt hellhole of backbiting nobles, but they're the only people who seem to give a shit about commoners on any level
>The "Evil"-Empire is a brutal police state run by an obvious Putin expy, but they actually do seem to have their shit together and push for a lot of "progressive" policies no one else seems to give a shit
>The Druids will go to fucking WAR if it means protecting a particular grove, but will largely allow an orphanage to burn down to the ground as it is "nature's way of clearing the chaff"
>There IS a 100% EVIL faction, the Necromancers

>Even treasure is just another way to fuck the PCs
>In my first game, the party made their way through a Heroes' Tomb, killing undead and Necromancers left and right
>a bunch of Ghosts in the tomb help them find loot
>PCs' hearts are melted by a ghost librarian who was deeply depressed, and they felt real good about helping her
>She showed them a set of magic armor that was lost
>She leaves, happy that she helped them
>It's cursed as SHIT

1/?

>One of the players is now a Drow (previously human), with a Chaotic Evil Spider-Demon trapped in their head, "advising" the PC to do things like kill the Sorcerer to assert dominance and rape the Warlock (also for dominance, and because it would be amusing to it)
>Needless to say, the above story ends with an adventure that spanded the Earth in order to find a Demon that could lead them to a Wizard that could lead them to an Egg that would lead them to an Angel that MIGHT be able to drive the shithead armor demon out

And finally, be devious in traps:
>Party enters a tower with two doors in the far wall, and a demon face with a gaping mouth
>They are told to choose their path wisely, or die
>They decide to trick the trap by opening both doors at once
>The two who do this stupid thing disappear with a comical *POP* sound
>Both end up in death-trap rooms
>One is in a room with balsawood floors that bend down into a spike bed when stepped on
>The other is in a copper room lined in iron that electrocutes anything that moves
>It also electrocutes things that don't
>They both survived, but learned an important lesson about being too clever for their own good

My point being, be a little mean to get the point across that the world sucks. But then reward them for acting virtuous and clever (but not too clever). The cursed armor is now an Artifact of Power. The tomb run ended with a pile of treasure the PCs will actually struggle to spend all at once. Backing up the "Evil" Empire guys can be smart in the short run, but karma will come back for them later.

Ramble ramble ramble I'm too sleepy/drunk for this.

Ey, thanks I'll definietly base my campaign off all the stuff you said.

I've got the base idea down: 1860-1880s peasants in Siberia after Tunguska event with magic that want to get the fuck out to the West and stuff will ensue.

Need to do a lot of worldbuilding, but I'm probably going to run low-to-medium magic with being tied directly to Divinity and relics. Different factions and religions fighting for relics that have an Ego of their own, and destroying one relic fucks over 100 or so priests.

This is gonna be fun, time to read "Demons" by Dostoevsky and gear up the sadism.

Sounds good. Luck to you user!

What do you think the human reaction would be to seeing an interstellar megastructure for the first time? I'm talking about ringworlds, dyson spheres, and say a shkadov thruster? These would being operated by "friendly" super intelligent machines but what do you guys think would be going through an explorers mind if they found of these things?

Really want a sci-fi setting that feels grandiose and shows off the awesomeness that a race could create.

I would assume awe and some amount of fear. Awe because holy shit look at it! You can't tell me looking at the moon or Mt Everest doesn't inspire awe in people, if only for their sheer size.

Fear because who could build such a thing, are they friendly, and does this mean humans aren't special anymore?

That's an interesting concept, but my dragons aren't exactly the covetous type.

Well...then what are they? Covetous is usually a major part of being a Dragon.

Unless this is a "My Elves are 12-limbed insectoid race" sort of thing. In which case, why?

Less intelligent.
Parasitic minds.
Violent culture.
Niggers.

In my setting, dragons live underground and are tasked with tending to the divine flame beneath the world that keeps the sun and stars up in the sky. Every so often, a few dragons get disillusioned with their assignment and travel to the world above and start indulging in the wealth and pleasures that were denied to them. So I shouldn't say all dragons aren't covetous, but the majority aren't.

Well, then you should tie their healing into fire. Fire damage (or whatever system equivalent) heals them, rather than time and rest.

Oh, what about taking a rest at a source of fire? Or maybe smoking some cigarettes?

Could work. They seem spiritually linked to flame as much as biologically.

Guys, I need soem help considering germanic and nordic mythology. So, as evil enemies and monsters they have giants, Fenrir, Jörmungandr... all big monsters, but what I'm looking for is something more "standardish", as regular enemies that serve the same purpose as goblins and orcs in your standard-fantasy setting, not necessarily sentient.

If there is nothing then it's up to wolves, boars and bears to be cut down en mass.

What effect does the divine flame have on mortals?

On regular mortals, it burns like regular fire but only more tingling in their atoms. But it empowers and heals the tribe of Erem, fire druids that watch over the divine flame alongside the dragons.

Is there a crack for Dungeon Painter Studio? I'm curious if the software is good now.

So, races. In my fantasy setting i am trying to make mine both believable and interesting. And I do realize that it is something that everybody who was semi-serious about worldbuilding attempted (unless they were going in explicitely opposite direction), but i still want to give it a go. So far the two points I want to focus on are:
- Differences from humans and their visible impact on society and culture of those beings. And I do want it to be something else than being tall/short/green/stupid - lets say a race is actually immortal but a female can produce only a single offspring and work from there.
- Diversity within the race. One of my main gripes is that in most settings, a single race can be mapped to a single real-life region. Of course it is not always the case and sometimes it is not inherently bad. Still, the idea of a race that has a culture that is almost alien and yet diverse within itself gives me design boners.
So, are there any good but not that well-known examples of this? Or just
>post your races

Ok so... as some background and history for this setting which takes place on a continent. Some 3 centuries ago a race of people finally united despite their nomadic and bandit-like culture, and it turns out that a life of constant movement and struggle made them pretty good at fucking up the other proper nations. So the continent spends a century and a half under their rule, which is a more hands off pay tribute or we fuck you up kind of rule. Obviously this isn't a sustainable way to run a nation and the cracks start to appear from within, and in half a century it all falls apart from the infighting. The original nomadic people are scattered to the wind again, some assimilate into the nations they had conquered, others return to their harsh life of constant movement and fighting and the last of them are the remnants of the old government clinging to their glory days.

So the impact this has on the current world is its a century later, everyone is more aware of their neighbors, materials and ideas intersect in ways that wouldn't have been possible before this violent unification and lastly whenever groups of those nomadic bandits start to gather everyone worries. Their lot in life has shifted from nomadic banditry and herding to soldiers of fortune.

Both are good and important points. Monocultures are shit, but you still want to explain how they ended up in the various regions.
Currently it is due to lot of jobs being in urban areas, but before there were bunch migration around - for example, after human empire got sunk, some bunch, scholars in particular journeyed through Navaros Chain to east to buddy up with Desw, while some moved up north to try to find help from Caowe.

I still think I have to develop these major species further - there are other intelligent creatures, but they are in less number and more regionally constrained, ex. javdra isn't really considered a civilization, and humans barely anymore by the definitions that roll around in the setting.
I need to think traits more divergent from general scheme of biped. Non-bipeds ( Jaculo are sort of ) or radically different activity times or regions ( aquatic ).
However, they'd probably remain smaller players.

I'd highly recommend basing your campaign from the time period of 18th and 19th if you want a good dynamic:

The Former period between around 1680 and late 18th century due to liberalism Science and Statecraft flourished but Religion was suppressed which caused a significant decline in public morality, the Church became intellectually and capitally impoverished and literature became frigid and sterile. Imperialism became the new state religion.

The latter period between the late 18th century and 19th century autocracy and nationalism came to dominate official policies, scepticism of science and rationalism became common place, religion's importance exploded again and culture, literature and good morality flourished to unparalleled heights but economic stagnation and corruption reduced Russia's military position in the World.

I've had a campaign where the party are non-aligned mercenaries work for both two countries that represent theses two time periods.

Is it still allowed to like medieval fantasy?

As long as it isn't a Forgotten Realms clone.

How could you do FR right?

Where are some good places to hide cities?
I'm building a new setting for a campaign with friends. I want the high elves of the setting to all live in very secluded places, and I want there to be a handful of hidden pirate cities as well.
So far I've got the north pole, an oasis, a mountaintop, and a flying city for the high elves. And I have an underwater city and a city on an island turtle (that used to belong to the high elves) for the pirates.
Anybody got ideas?

I couldn't, FR is literally unfixable at this point, it suffers from so many problems.

>At least three independent continually progressing timelines
>Built-in DMPC's that are so crucial to the metaplot It doesn't make any sense if they don't show up in every campaign
>Power creep, magical items are literally everywhere.
>The Harpers

etc

DMPCs?

Sorry, this is very irrelevant to everything, but are you Finnish?

What's wrong with the Harpers?

Yes. Was it because of 'varpu'?

I'm brainstorming for a new campaign I'll be running soon. Setting has a coalition of hobgoblins and other monstrous races as the main threat to mankind. Any suggestions for a name for this organization?

What about something as simple as a thick forest? Decease-ridden jungle is even better candidate. Elves don't care because they have perfect health, if anyone tries to find them, they die of malaria.

Yup. Only makes sense that we Finns hang out in these autism containment threads, I guess.

the harder you try the less likely that you will find nothing, just let your imagination wander and see what you find. if your imagination is not going to fauna this time, no worries, just jot down what you come up with and save it for later. do this enough and soon you will have a world's worth of material and the rest just becomes a small matter of stringing it all together.

Swamps, inside a vulcano, inside giant trees (every tree is one or several buildings, but from the outside they just look like trees). Good old underground caverns.

The commonwealth of _______
equality/justice/truth
Continentname
Etc

Depends how monolithic and Evil you wanna go.

The Horde
The Swarm
Confederation of Tribes
Etc

Can someone give me an idea for a species of hivemind controlled parasites that aren't the Zerg?

I know Zerg weren't parasitic

Possibly related
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tingler

My setting focuses pretty closely to a collection of islands called Castian (pic related). The islands lie right on the equator (those desert areas are at 30 degrees, horse latitude).

What sort of armor do you wear in an equatorial climate? Assuming access to iron and some steel forging, exotic animal parts (giant, monstrous sea-life), and tropical woods.

europa?

So, a question. How would an average fishing community of an exclusively carnivorous race compare yo an average farming community of an exclusively herbivorous race compare to one another in terms of food production?? Assume comparable levels of technology.

And what's the level of technology? Lol

Drone tending of OGM megafishes, hydroponics of algae in underground robotic facilities respectively.

The herbivorous race would just have a massive advantage in pretty every aspect, large cities surrounded by farmland everywhere.

The carnivorous race is pretty much fucked, especially if I they don't have access to whale meat, they would be small tribes that constantly had to travel depleting fish stocks everywhere they go, every meal would have to include large amounts of fats and oils.

Adding onto this what extinct animals should I put in my setting besides dinosaurs? Preferably something that could live in a jungle environment

Giant bugs, sea scorpions (pic related), giant amphibians.

Tell me more about your setting!

Clarification: I assumed the jungle would include rivers, swamps and so on. If not, I'd recommend you looking up the megafauna of South America before the landbridge between North and South formed.

Not that guy, but I love Sea Scorpions for my setting's Leviathans.

Then again, so did Mass Effect so....

It's a certain aspect of the setting where a medieval ancient Egyptian-esque civilization takes to exploring and settling the jungles that lie deep in the southern half of the continent. Much of the fauna their is unique to that particular part of the continent and I wanted to flesh that out a bit more.

>Greyhawkesque campaign setting
>The Wizard managed to break the entire plot, caused a crusade or two, destroyed hundreds of scroll with the only copies of certain spells, etc.
>After several seasons of them on the run with the entire world's combined forces hunting them they finally die
>Do one-shot set in the same setting but ??? years into the future
>Elves are now worshipped like gods because their actions with the destruction of the scrolls or something, probably gonna limit Psion/Mystic classes to their race
>Kobolds are now slave race of cute dog-people after being genocides because of the crusades
>Slavophile aesthetic slowly replacing the "old fashioned" Anglo-Germanic aesthetic including tea bricks as the main currency
>They want to permanently play in this time period
>etc, etc

I've made a huge mistake, how do I into gonzo?

>There's lots of poor minorities
And they're all criminals. What's your point?

And?

Secret Societies!

Does your setting have them? Who are they? What are they planning?

>Humanity has reached the stars through much trial and tribulation
>First contact has been made with a race known as the "Dejec" in the form of a trader
>The Dejec trader quickly welcome man to the galactic community but just as quickly inform they've missed the golden age of the galaxy by about 10 millions years.
>Human scientists are dumbfounded that the Dejec trader seems to be downplaying the awe it is to be at this stage
>The Dejec promptly tells mankind to explore and see for themselves and
>Mankind does and find out that it's true
>Great megastructures litter the galaxy in disrepair from an empire that disappeared to a universe inside a computer system that surrounds a star that everyone forgot how to find
>Other races are either warlike despots longing for the past, disheveled refugees, disparate nomads, and many more.

Mankind has reached the stars only to find they've been passed by in the scale of time.

Yeah, but now they get free alien shit!

make sure to make it look like a looting by the korblocks

I'm thinking the larger nations politics involve keeping these people in a constant state of infighting, convincing one tribe to attack another, aiding that tribe by arming them to fight those other guys and occasionally undermining the vestigial empire's authority. Eventually they should catch on, band together and start causing hell for the other nations.

Thanks. Helped a little but it still needs a good bit of work

Named after the oceanid, not the moon. The region is the focus of refugee humans trying to find a new world to regain their bearings on after the Milky Way essentially asploded real good like

One of the only few organized crime efforts on the only remaining ark of humanity, the Shin Yakuza (name pending) works from the shadows to manipulate the on board companies for reasons known only to the higher ups. The head of the Shin Yakuza are said to be the few Japanese purebloods that were loaded onto the ship before Earth went pop, but the organization is not purely Japanese, as they are known to exploit the denizens of Neo Tokyo and Neo New York in their business.

The Shin Yakuza is theorized to be a network of greedy company officials hoping to overthrow the ship's Sky Marshal, but in reality they are a network of sleeper agents placed onto the ship to ensure the ark doesn't accidentally reestablish comms with an Earth that actually didn't explode, as the ark firing off before it was finished was a test conducted by Earth scientists. The denizens of the ESF Pathfinder are secretly being monitored to test the capabilities of humanity living a self sustaining life out in the cosmos.

At the end of the experiment in a few years time, the Shin Yakuza is ordered to overload the ship's reactor and kill everyone on the ship so the truth of the matter isn't leaked to the public on Earth and shut down due to public outrage.

Super rough draft, but it's still a wip

Had another question:

What can you potentially make a boat out of if wood is limited?

thin sheets of metal? thick leaves even tho if you dont have wood you prob dont have leaves. possibly bits from animals.

Rocks